Tara's Fight Song

08/21/2025

Hello everyone, it's Skyla. We have an update regarding Tara's health. We went to her primary care doctor on Monday, and during the assessment with the nurse, Tara unfortunately started to feel unwell and had a syncope episode. Once everyone was able to get her out of her wheelchair and lay her back so she wouldn't fall forward, the situation became further alarming. The doctor and I both gave her different forms of physical and verbal stimulation, including calling out her name, roughly rubbing her back and arms, and digging a fingernail into her hand, followed by a sternum rub to bring her back to consciousness. However, with all that was being done, she had no response to anything. The doctor checked her eyes, and that's when we found out she was actively seizing for 11 minutes.
An ambulance was called for her and she was taken to the ER and was discharged the same night after a few tests.
The next day, we were squeezed into an appointment with her doctor again however, on the way there her words became slurred, had horrible migraines mouth drooped and had full numbness on one side of her body. I rushed her to the ER once more and they did a stroke evaluation on her before the conclusion was made that it was due to her hemiplegic migraines.

She’s now at home resting with being monitored. The last two days were terrifying to say the least and we are worried about how often she’s been having seizures. Unfortunately due to some medications she used to take, they were masking most of her seizures. Now that she has been switched off, there’s a chance we will have to stay on high alert for more when she starts showing signs. She will be seeing a neurologist soon so hopefully we’ll have more answers for the hemipalegic migraines and seizures and how to lower her chances on any more episodes.

Please keep her in your thoughts, prayers and intentions. She has gone through absolute hell the past few days and could use some love and uplifting.

08/15/2025

HI...IT'S ME...

08/15/2025

Hi my beautiful Fight Song family. I'm letting you know that I am ok. I have been taking time to shift my focus and start allowing myself to love the new me. I've been grieving my old life so much, and seeing the memories come up day after day is bittersweet. I'm learning to love my body for how hard it fights for me. I'm learning to love my new body size, and for what it can do instead of my limitations. I am learning that I do not have to give up on love just because I feel like a burden to any future partner, so why bother. I will no longer speak these to myself. I am not my disease, I am fighting my disease because it is NOT ME.
Many new changes are happening, new Dr that is NOT ACCEPTING anything from what anyone else has put on me or my body. He is wonderful. So kind. So loving. And he sees me EVERY week to take care of one thing or system at a time. We have already found things that were missed by others, or found and not explored. He has shifted my medication to the PROPER ones, and I already feel the difference. He read over 250 pages of my records in 2 days and found so many things to address. Yes, it means more testing, but it means HOPE. Please friends, pray, meditate, send out good energy, whatever your thing is.. and believe with me for healing, answers, and HOPE. I love you all.
No more rainy days... clear skies and rainbows from now on.
"Here comes the sun"

06/30/2025

Oof. I felt this HARD today. Not all of it, but most. Illness of ANY KIND can take everything you know of yourself and show you parts of yourself you didn't know existed, good and bad. I want to be in the world again. LIVING. But I'M SO TIRED SOMETIMES. And I'm scared I'm not the same person you remember. That fearless, fiery redhead, single mom to 2 adult sons that could conquer the world whole helping women empower themselves to birth their babies with the strength of a thousand men? If you are feeling any of this...I see you my friend. I hear you. I'm here too. It doesn't matter why... call me. Text me. Message me. I probably need it too...I love you.

05/18/2025

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates but we’ve had a lot going on and decided instead of posting about what illness and that illness is doing and what this scan or test said, we would rather try and focus on the positives at this time.

The 18th, tomorrow, is Tara’s birthday and right now her phone is still busted and we are trying to find ways in our financial stress to straighten that out but we’d like to ask for everyone to flood her page with some positivity, and for the ones that lnow her personally and have been around her, if you have any photos or videos you would like to send or tag her in of your memories together it would make her so happy. She loves each and everyone of you and misses her family dearly. And right now we are celebrating a birthday she was told she wouldn’t have a possibility of seeing and want to surround her with all the love that we can as we never know what may happen after this but can always hope and look forward to her next.

For those of you who would like and wish to send her a financial blessing or just send her something for her birthday, I will leave her cash app below. But mostly we just at want to ask that you flood her page with some positivity, menories and love. ❤️

Cash App: taralancaster78

05/14/2025

Hey everyone, I wanted to give you a quick update. Unfortunately, Tara's phone is broken beyond repair at the moment, and we are doing all we can to replace it, which is why she hasn't reached out as much. We are under a lot of financial stress as of right now, with medical and just daily living costs.

It is Tara's birthday on the 18th, so anyone who would love to bless her, I'll drop her Cash App below and wish her a good birthday. ❤️

$TaraLancaster

01/23/2025

Just a quick unexpected update. Went in Monday to get regular labs done, and the nurse that came to get us (Skyla took me) from registration said "you losing blood?" I said, "I'm here to give you blood!", and laughed. She didn't laugh. She triaged me, my bp was 164/117, pulse over 130. I had fallen and hit my face with glasses on the day before and had black eyes, and she noticed that too. Within minutes, I was in the critical care part of the ER, Dr's waiting, and the hall lined with people ready to take me for various things. I got type and crossed for blood, labs, CT's for my head and face, and chest xrays, whole work up. I said, "are you doing this in case I'm admitted?" (I was at Piedmont and had never been admitted there before, only labs and blood transfusions or iron infusions). The Dr said, you ARE admitted, you need oxygen and are dropping into the 80's, you need blood asap, and you're third spacing all of your fluids so they aren't going to the right organs, they are being stored between your skin and connective tissue (the "third space") because your body is storing it there because it's not getting enough bc even though you're storing fluid, you are severely dehydrated. It happens in late stage disease process, but mine won't seem to let up for months now. It used to be sporadic. Now it's a constant fight. The pitting is so bad, you can sink your fingers into the tissue over my shin bone, and they start like that for a long time, and can physically move fluids from one place to another on my legs. I gained 11 pounds over night with no food, vomiting, and malabsorption. So there were no icu beds open, so I was sent to CPU just below icu stage, and given blood immediately and ekg's, O2, all the things. After lots of infusing, my hemoglobin finally came up to 8, not good but also not deadly at least. But still enough to make me tired constantly, and at this point looks to be a regular struggle as we go along. They kept me until last night from Monday, and got me out as soon as we could, bc they are running rampant with RSV, flu, covid, norovirus,and many other things someone who's as severely suppressed as I am can easily catch and not recover from very quickly. I've been so out of it, this was my first moment of clarity to update.
So, I'm still here. Still fighting. Still trying to do things that occupy my mind and spark joy (check out Up Close and Personalized page on here, as we are still trying to get our previous and current projects up on so we can take more orders, but we are having a lot of fun trying new things, and it keeps my mind going, and brings joy to make things for others that they designed and I put into reality. Message us if you have a cool idea or request!), so it's not quite so depressing to do the same thing every day with no payoff life chronic illness tends to do. And yes, I CAN GO PLACES AND HAVE VISITORS! So many assume I can't. I CAN AND WANT TO! As long as I'm having a stable day, I can take treatment on the go. And depending on where it what it is, I have a regular comfort manual wheelchair as well as a custom motorized wheelchair that is all terrain! 😂 you just gotta be able to tow it for me somehow!
I love you all so much. I don't want to not be a part of the life outside these walls. I want to do my music, see my friends, experience things, and look forward to things like I used to. If you wanna get together, reach out! I'm sure Skyla would love a break, and I'd love to see my people. Thank you for keeping my head up at my lowest. My life has changed a lot in the last few years. But I'm still in here. I'm still Tara. And I have so much love to give to the ones that will have it. I miss you. I love you.
Tara

01/09/2025

Hey guys, we hope everyone has had an amazing holiday! We are sorry for the lack of posting, things have been quite hectic but we can say that mama has been surrounded by love from all her children. Her health lately hasn’t been the best and unfortunately with the weather and sickness going around, it definitely isn’t helping that. She expresses a lot on how she truly wants to update more on here, however there are days she just can’t no matter how badly she tries to will herself to do so. We’ve had to take some time posting from our shop and just focus on completing orders as she doesn’t want to worry anyone with how she’s feeling. Most days we’ve been focusing on appointments, medication regimens, vitals and rest so it delays us from posting much but we still try to make our efforts where we can. We only wanted to update you guys to let you know we are still here and we love you but also to give us grace from not posting and messaging most days as we are keeping an eye on Tara’s health and appointments.

12/22/2024

We will share more about this later on here, right now we are highly focused on the care of Tara. Please keep her in your thoughts and let’s hope for a better recovery from what going on. 🩵

Send a message to learn more

10/30/2024

TW AND CW:
Hospital setting, blood, bags of blood, IV lines, port in chest/ central line/ blood transfusion, disease process

It's been a bit since I have updated, and I apologize. I did have my blood transfusion and my iron infusion. I have a couple of pictures that I can post.

Many of you may have seen, that Skyla Long and I have started a hobby/side shop and making some cool stuff that was helping to take my mind off of the daily battle that can consume me if I let it. So, if you haven't yet, go check out Up Close and Personalized and see what we're building! It's a very soft launch, and slower than we wanted, but we have to balance that with the reality of chronic illness and its unknowns. But, it's there to bless others with all customizable pieces, amazing resin art, custom art and paintings, custom vinyl in all forms, even iron-on, handmade jewelry, and we will be bringing in an awesome woodworker whose rings and custom cut wood pieces are gorgeous! He and I will be making custom river tables as well, where he does the wood part, and I do the resin. Guys, it is so beautiful when those mediums combine! Plus, he's an amazing human whose talent deserves to be out there!
But, I digress...
It's so hard to know you were once a part of something so big, like my music family, and then to realize from afar that... while you may be missed, life goes on really without you. No one is here forever, and no one should ever feel that kind of pain of not being a part of the one thing that kept you going for so long. Yet here I sit, seeing videos of the Halloween parties with the bands I was such a big part of, chosen family, sharing love and music, healing. And I feel so disconnected from them, and that right in this moment. I need it like I need air. The music. The songs, covers and my own, all stuck in my head and heart, where I used to scream and sing them out loud to share my story with others. A story of light. A story of love. A story of a warrior, me. Tara. I say I'm not defined by my diagnoses, but it doesn't mean there aren't days where those very things consume me. Like it's eating me alive. Today is one of those days. And frankly, I have pushed away so many people that love me dearly, bc I'm afraid to devastate them when I'm no longer the Tara they know, and following that, when I'm no longer here at all one day. Like a ticking time bomb. But, all that gets me is alone. And if I've ever needed them, it's now. I have to get back to living. I have to. In front of a mic. Telling my story. Sharing my light.
I "met" someone yesterday by a complete stroke of luck, universe, and God colliding to create a perfect moment for a perfect connection. She and I talked for almost 2 hours, only about 30 minutes of it being for the actual reason of the call. But I think the reason was exactly what it turned into, the rest was just the icing on the cake of miraculous intentions. I don't want to @ her in case she'd rather stay in the background, but she just kept telling me how inspiring I am, how beautiful my story is, and how amazing that I am trying to help her when I'm fighting this battle myself. But sweet new friend, that IS ME. That's how I'm blessed. It's how I'm made. Blessing others is my healing. That talk reminded me that I have to stop pushing people away who love me, bc they might need MY STORY to survive their own. I need life again. I need those opportunities to share my heart through songs and stories again. She thinks I blessed her. No, friend, you blessed me.
And to every person reading this... YOU are wanted. YOU are needed. YOU are worthy of love in all forms. YOU are missed terribly, and I would do anything to feel your loving arms around me.
I love you Fight Song family. I have an update, and I'll share that next. This one is just letting you know that I'm not truly ok, but calls like yesterday remind me that I am here for a reason. A purpose. Maybe not in the same way as before. But definitely still here.
I love you. Thank you for loving me too.

09/09/2024

Mama is starting to feel a little better since Fridays iron infusion. It took her a bit and she ran a mild fever, but that can be a common symptom and she’s very familiar with these. As most of you know, tomorrow morning at eight, we go for a full blood transfusion and platelets, and are hoping to try to maintain these levels for longer than a couple of months at a time. When you don’t have a colon and you take different certain kinds of medications and things like that and already have low iron deficient anemia, you have to get these kinds of infusions and whole blood transfusions very often usually every few months. Fortunately she’s got the insurance for now to pay for it because without it, it’s thousands of dollars for a dose and the treatment she got Friday and tomorrow were the treatments all of her loved ones, music family and chosen family helped by throwing a benefit just a couple years ago. Looking back now, thank goodness for that because we found out what kind she can use and what not and now being able to have insurance cover her, she doesn’t have to pay thousands out-of-pocket, so thank you all for the past and for the present love, mama loves you very much and forever. Grateful for all the support and undying love that the ones are still with her have. We are now taking a self care night before the day of the the full blood transfusion to try to lift mamas spirits, who wore it better? 😂

09/07/2024

Hey Fight Song family! Tara here with a quick update. Have been low on iron, hemoglobin, platelets, and need blood. I got my iron infusion today (the one you raised a benefit for because it is so expensive to get. But now, thanks Medicare!) and feel fluish and have a low grade temp, but those are pretty normal afterwards. I go on Monday for another whole blood transfusion.

Other than that, we are still very much looking for a new place to live (we being my chosen daughter, and has become my ultimate live in caregiver) and a car. Being just the 2 of us, and no one having to pay for us in any way, if anyone knows of anyone that has a basement, an in law suite, rooms available, please let us know! I have her as a caregiver, so that's not an issue, plus I have home health once a week. No one works need to help me out care for me. And I pay my own bills, so no one is taking on any personal expenses. We do have a very limited budget, but are believing the right place is waiting for the right time. Thank you all so love and support me. And thank you Skyla Long for not leaving my side for one minute since the day you decided to be my forever family. I'm so blessed by you every single day. You deserve the world. Thank you for helping me feel worthy of your undying love and help, especially without proper pay, just bc you love me. (Y'all, this girl deserves her own fundraiser, she does all of this by choice, and now we have to move, and still she refuses to not be with me and is right by my side thru every Dr appt, nurse visit, hospital stay, and holds space for me every day with grace and poise)!
I love you all. A couple of cute pics during my iron infusion today....